Search form

Jaime Fuller

Recent Articles

We often think of business leaders as hard-nosed pragmatists, guided by dollars and cents with little regard to emotion. But the truth is that corporate executives are human just like the rest of us. They can be as irrational as anyone, and frequently make business decisions on the basis of things like spite. So it is that the gun maker Beretta USA has decided against expanding operations into West Virginia, despite heavy lobbying from state officials, because , as the Charleston Gazette reports, "they say Sen. Joe Manchin's push to expand background checks makes the state less stable for their business." Perhaps the folks at Beretta don't quite understand what a senator does, or how laws passed (or in this case, not passed) by Congress actually work. If Congress were to pass a background check bill for the country, it wouldn't make the state of West Virginia any more or less "stable" for the gun business than any other state. And after all, business is booming. It isn't that more...

Those liberal Northeastern elitists are at it again. It isn't enough that they have to go out and celebrate the Supreme Court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8, like it was cause for something besides quiet mourning for the heterosexual marriages soon to be rent asunder. But now they've enlisted our most beloved puppets in their crusade of depravity. The cover of next week's New Yorker features Bert and Ernie … well, you just have to see it to witness the horror. Is nothing sacred? Can't two guys share a bedroom for decades in an emotionally supportive relationship based on affection and trust without people wanting to make it all gay ? I mean, come on! Needless to say, conservatives were not pleased when they saw the two sitting on the couch together, Bert's arm resting across Ernie's shoulders. "Is it 'Sesame Street' or 'Castro Street'?" asked liberal media bias inquisitors Newsbusters, a joke that surely didn't occur to anyone else. "Not even...

You already knew that Texas governor Rick Perry was, as they say down in the Lone Star state, dumb as a stump. But Perry has been working hard to convince Americans that he's also mean as a scorpion (which they probably don't say down there, but maybe they ought to). With the highest proportion of uninsured residents of any state in the union, Perry gleefully declined the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, leaving millions of Texans without access to medical care despite the fact that the federal government would have picked up nearly all of the tab. And now, he's taking the nationwide Republican effort to destroy women's reproductive rights into new realms of vindictiveness. You no doubt heard about Texas state senator Wendy Davis's heroic filibuster the other night, in which she prevented the legislature from passing a bill that would have banned all abortions after 20 weeks and led to the closure of 37 of the state's 42 abortion clinics. The bad news was that...

AP Photo/Boston Police W elcome to the first installment of a new Prospect feature, where we take a big chewy topic in the news and tell you everything you need to read about it to look like a smarty-pants at happy hour. First up, the Whitey Bulger trial! There’s no shortage of coverage of the unfolding trial proceedings, but you need a lot of context to understand the decades-long drama surrounding the mythologized South Boston gangster. As the trial continues, you should read Slate’s ongoing series , but if you want a handle on the story’s full Homeric sweep, read on. The Three Essentials 1. Where was Whitey? A piece from 1988, which highlights how the Winter Hill Gang’s influence looms heavy over South Boston, no one knows much about the legendary man—Bulger—leading it. As one observer put it, "People all knew him, but nobody knows him.” 2. Bulger and the FBI This five - part series , reported in 1998, reveals the scope of Whitey Bulger’s relationship with the FBI, especially agent...

Sometimes it's hard to tell which Republicans in Congress fear more: immigration reform passing, or immigration reform not passing. They need to help pass reform to show America's Latino voters that, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, the Republican party doesn't actually hate them. But their base doesn't actually like the idea of comprehensive reform, particularly if it involves a path to citizenship (even a long and painful one). What to do? In the Senate, where six-year terms allow for a longer view and members represent entire states, immigration reform probably has more than enough votes to pass, even over a filibuster. In the House, however, things are more complicated. It isn't that reform can't get the votes, because it can. But if it did, the majority would be made up of nearly all the Democrats and just some of the Republicans. And that would be a violation of the "Hastert rule," which calls for no bill to be allowed to the floor for a vote unless it has the...